Clay Smoking Pipes

Appomattox County · dedicated 2001 · Pamplin Road, southwest corner of Richmond Highway interesection

According to local tradition, residents of this region were making clay smoking pipes here by the mid-eighteenth century. By 1879 the Pamplin Pipe Factory was in operation. Machines there were used to mold clay into pipes, which were then allowed to dry. After drying, the pipes were fired in a kiln, cooled, and shipped in barrels throughout the world. By 1919 the clay pipe industry had peaked, but the factory supplied a national and international market well into the 1930s. The factory may have produced one million pipes a month at the height of its output. The factory closed by 1952.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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Clay Smoking Pipes

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